Carps
11-23-2003, 07:35 AM
Just got December R&C and onp page 30 is the beginning of thier latest list of all time favourite rods and kustoms. Whilst the authour's list doesn't match mine that's not what I'm taking issue with.
My issue is with the caption beneath the picture of the Doane Spencer '32 and I quote.... " The famous Doane Spencer roadster established the classic look for a highboy that is still copied today and would be on anybody's list of best rods."
OK it's on my list, but it is not the car that established the classic hot rod highboy look. In fact it was built long after the cars that established that look. In my opinion, the Spencer car shares little with the classic Hot Rod Highboy '32 which did not feature the same level of engineering or expensive store bought components. The Joe Nitti roadster is a better example of the classic and traditional highboy roadster and even then, that car displays a degree of finish and detail not common for Hot Rods of the time.
The Spencer roadster was in it's day, more like a modern day Boyd Coddinton creation, featuring the best and most expensive and exotic components along with a level of build quality and detail not at all common amongst hot rods. I ask, how many hot rods in 1948 featured race car steering or Duval windscreens? Unlike the quintesential highboy roadsters, the Spencer car features a chassis that has been bobbed front and rear and then Z'ed to lower the car's height and presumably the roll centre making it more suitable for road racing rather than traditional hot rod pursuits. This is not typical of Hot Rod highboys of the late forties when this car was built.
Yeah, it's a gorgeous car, but it aint what the writer claims. The first highboys actually appeared in '32 and '33 at events like the Elgin Stock Car races. These racers were later displayed all over America and I figure it was also these stripped down brand spanking new cars that inspired the original hot rodders to build what we call 'Traditional Highboys'. I'd even be so bold as to suggest it was these cars, that inspired Doane Spencer, when he built his road racing Hot Rod, many years later.
The guts of my beef is that the folks writing these magazine stories owe it to us all to record history more accurately than they sometimes do. Certainly not to change it to suit themselves or what they think it should be. There's enough old rodders still around that they have no excuses for getting it wrong.
My issue is with the caption beneath the picture of the Doane Spencer '32 and I quote.... " The famous Doane Spencer roadster established the classic look for a highboy that is still copied today and would be on anybody's list of best rods."
OK it's on my list, but it is not the car that established the classic hot rod highboy look. In fact it was built long after the cars that established that look. In my opinion, the Spencer car shares little with the classic Hot Rod Highboy '32 which did not feature the same level of engineering or expensive store bought components. The Joe Nitti roadster is a better example of the classic and traditional highboy roadster and even then, that car displays a degree of finish and detail not common for Hot Rods of the time.
The Spencer roadster was in it's day, more like a modern day Boyd Coddinton creation, featuring the best and most expensive and exotic components along with a level of build quality and detail not at all common amongst hot rods. I ask, how many hot rods in 1948 featured race car steering or Duval windscreens? Unlike the quintesential highboy roadsters, the Spencer car features a chassis that has been bobbed front and rear and then Z'ed to lower the car's height and presumably the roll centre making it more suitable for road racing rather than traditional hot rod pursuits. This is not typical of Hot Rod highboys of the late forties when this car was built.
Yeah, it's a gorgeous car, but it aint what the writer claims. The first highboys actually appeared in '32 and '33 at events like the Elgin Stock Car races. These racers were later displayed all over America and I figure it was also these stripped down brand spanking new cars that inspired the original hot rodders to build what we call 'Traditional Highboys'. I'd even be so bold as to suggest it was these cars, that inspired Doane Spencer, when he built his road racing Hot Rod, many years later.
The guts of my beef is that the folks writing these magazine stories owe it to us all to record history more accurately than they sometimes do. Certainly not to change it to suit themselves or what they think it should be. There's enough old rodders still around that they have no excuses for getting it wrong.